


Reasons to Stay Inside

by strangeispowerful



Series: ~*Superpowers AU Oneshots*~ [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Connor Murphy Has a Crush on Evan Hansen, Cute Ending, Fluff and Angst, I mean, Ice Cream, M/M, One Shot Collection, Rated T for language, Unrequited Crush, book shopping, hehehehehe, i'm not surprised, it is Connor we're talking about, powers au, which is.. interesting if you've read some of my other oneshots, why do all of my fics have food in them?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeispowerful/pseuds/strangeispowerful
Summary: Now that summer’s started, it’s more accurate to say that Connor would rather just not do anything. He’d be perfectly content just laying in bed and staring at the ceiling—well, as content as one can be laying in bed and staring at the ceiling—but Zoe is like his polar opposite; always getting him up, getting him out, making sure cobwebs aren’t gathering on his skin. It’s only a week into June, and he’s already been forced to the public library multiple times, been biking in one hundred degree heat, and gone to the historic-looking cinema downtown to see the new Marvel movie with Evan, Jared, and Alana. Zoe’s always finding excuses to hang out with friends.Not that that's a bad thing. But there are so many reasons to just stay inside, for once. So many ways to screw up, especially with the fire that's ready and willing to spring from his fingertips at the least convenient of moments.
Relationships: Connor Murphy & Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen & Connor Murphy, Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy
Series: ~*Superpowers AU Oneshots*~ [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750975
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	Reasons to Stay Inside

Just because Connor has fire in his blood doesn’t mean that summer is any more bearable.

In fact, he hates the heat. The way that it completely overcomes him; the feeling of his skin, radiating, his lungs burning with every intake of breath. The only good thing about it, really, is being able to smoke even if he can’t find his lighter; though, the sensation of having a cigarette actually isn’t too different from the affinity. It still burns, just... in a good way.

...But you can imagine that a record heat wave is a  _ completely _ different experience than having flames pour from your fingertips, so... maybe summer’s a  _ little  _ more bearable.

Connor’s standing in the little bookshop on Maple Street, his sister a few aisles away, no doubt flipping through the entirety of the book before deciding whether or not to buy it. She always takes terribly long with anything involving books—bookstores, libraries, museum gift shops—but he’s not complaining because he’s not exactly quick about it, either.

Books are… an interesting experience when they can turn into kindling at any second. Seeing that the power generally aligns to his emotions, it’s always tricky if he’s reading something  _ good— _ inconvenient, because why would he want to read something  _ not  _ good? At first, he’d tried rubber gloves, which did work—key words:  _ at first— _ until a particularly stirring passage on invisibility caused his hands to heat up so much that they’d started to  _ melt.  _

Just because he doesn’t feel pain from the affinity itself doesn’t mean that he can’t be burned by its collateral damage. He’d gotten them off, thank  _ god,  _ but he’d had burns all over his palms for weeks. 

Then, he’d tried weed—which, yeah, sounds kind of stupid, but he’d figured that it’d smooth things over. It always seems to. Blurs the sharp edges. It was worth a try to see if it would keep the fire in check, but it had been hard to focus on the actual  _ reading  _ because weed also makes his mind wander. Usually, that’s the reason he likes it, because, for once, he’s wandering on different paths than the normal  _ diediediediedie  _ ones, but, in this case, it had only proved as useless.

Why does it have to be books? Of all of the things in the world, literature is the one that he can’t handle? He really has tried everything; soaking his hands in ice water, wetting the pages (he’d  _ hated  _ doing that, but maybe if the pages were damp, they couldn’t burn…? He’d forgotten that water evaporates. Fuck science class). 

It’s ironic, because nothing seems to set him off like that other than reading. Or anger. He can get through everyday life without setting the world aflame, but any time he tries to sit down to read, any notions of escapism go up like flash paper. 

Having long hair is a whole other situation, though it does seem generally flame resistant. He’d let it go up completely once to freak Zoe out, and when she’d doused him with ice water, there’d been no losses, just the horrible smell of burnt hair. 

Connor takes the little old book and pushes it back into where he got it from the shelf, shoving his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t really feel like buying anything today anyway. Zoe had dragged him out to the town-ish part of town (some would go as far to call it ‘downtown’, but the little suburb-of-a-suburb is small enough that that just seems like they’re trying too hard) to buy their summer reading assignments early, but he’d rather just  _ not. _

Though, now that summer’s started, it’s more accurate to say that he’d  _ rather just not  _ do anything. He’d be perfectly content just laying in bed and staring at the ceiling—well, as content as one  _ can  _ be laying in bed and staring at the ceiling—but Zoe is like his polar opposite; always getting him up, getting him out, making sure cobwebs aren’t gathering on his skin. It’s only a week into June, and he’s already been forced to the public library multiple times, been biking in one hundred degree heat, and gone to the historic-looking cinema downtown to see the new Marvel movie with Evan, Jared, and Alana. Zoe’s always finding excuses to hang out with friends.

Again, he won’t complain. Especially because he’s not used to being around other people, and Evan, who also has an affinity, actually is really quite nice to be around, even if he counts as ‘other people’. Alana Beck and Zoe are basically best friends, so she comes around to the house a lot, and he doesn’t hate Jared, though he’s not close to him either.

Living in a small town, if you didn’t make friends with someone when you were both kids, you’re unlikely to have friends  _ at all  _ until you move away, so Connor takes it as a sign that maybe the universe doesn’t want him to wind up dead. Maybe the universe wants him to clean his act the fuck up. Therapy from god. 

He walks over to the main aisle of the store and heads toward the back until he sees Zoe, just as he imagined her; cross legged in the middle of the YA Fantasy section with countless books scattered around her. He leans against one of the shelves and crosses his arms. 

“So, no summer reading book, then?”

She doesn’t even look up, as if she’s in a trance. “Look at this.  _ Six dangerous outcasts, one impossible heist…  _ this looks good, right?” Zoe places the book down, a thick hardcover, its edges sprayed black, and picks up another. “Or this? It’s about magicians, I think. Evan recommended it to me.”

He checks his phone—it’s one o’clock, the midday sunshine falling brightly through the windows at the front of the store. “The first one sounds good, I don’t know.”

She carefully starts stacking the books into heaps, knowing that there’s not enough time in the world to fit every single one back in its respective spot, and, instead of choosing one, folds the two she’d shown him into her arms and gets to her feet.

“No summer reading book then?” she mocks, giving him a questioning eyebrow, and he shakes his head as they head toward the counter.

“I don’t really feel like turning anything into kindling right now.”

“Right.” She sets the two books on the counter and leans against it, fishing her wallet out of her pocket. “Hey, Holly.”

“Zoe,” greets the girl behind the register with a smile, her curly red hair framing her face like little orphan Annie. When you live in a small town, it feels like everyone knows everyone. Connor’s not sure if he’s a fan of that. 

She rings up and bags the two books, little bits of small talk drifting between them that Connor doesn’t care enough to listen to. By the time they’re out the door, the temperature has raised what must be five degrees and the light makes the whole world look like it’s under one of those fancy filters.

“So, what now?” Zoe says, bag of books dangling from her arm and her face in her phone as she walks down the sidewalk… in the complete opposite direction of the car.

“Where are you going?” He says, stopping dead, resisting the urge to rip his own skin off against the heat. “I thought you said we were getting books.”

“We did,” she shrugs. “You don’t want to go home now already, do you?”

He squints. “Actually—,”

“You can’t say that. The house is all dark…” she shudders. “Stuffy…”

Connor sighs tiredly, looking at her. “Why don’t you call Alana? Hang out with her? I want to go—,”

“We can get ice cream and see Evan!” She smiles, and lets the bag rest in the crook of her elbow so that she can tighten her ponytail. “It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah,” he grits. “Fun.” He considers, and, seeing her face, lets out a sound of annoyance. He knows that she can tell he’s given in. “Y’know, it’s not always going to work this way. Traipsing around timbuktu is not my idea of  _ fun _ .” He catches up to her, and they start walking down the sidewalk, passing little family owned businesses, cafes. Maple street is set up so that there’s only one lane going either way with a tiny median in the center, and the bright red poppies planted there seem to glow in the sun. 

She gives him a pointed look. “Tansy Creek is not  _ timbuktu,”  _ she says. She has a soft spot for the town for…  _ some  _ unknown reason. “It’s charming.”

“If you find ancient buildings probably built on a Native American burial ground charming.”

“Right. And I know that you don’t like getting out—in any shape or form—and that you’d rather stay at home—like, all the time—,” she catches herself and clears her throat. “But you like coffee ice cream, and it’s hot outside, and that’s what summer is for, right?”

Zoe continues ahead, nearly  _ glowing.  _ He doesn’t understand how. Maybe it’s the electricity; she always gets a little  _ zing _ -y when she’s excited. Once, she blew out a light bulb at an off-broadway show their mom had taken them to see for her fourteenth birthday. “Maybe for now,” he starts. “But what about after high school? College, and jobs…”

“Mhm. The crippling weight of a marital relationship,” she jokes. “I get it, and I don’t care. Summer is summer is summer. If I’m not still eating ice cream and biking when I’m thirty, something will have gone very wrong.”

They keep walking, but now Connor’s thoughts are turned toward exactly that:  _ but what about after high school?  _ It’s closer to him than it is to Zoe, and maybe that should scare him, but he just feels eerily numb about it, the kind of feeling you get when you see a spider and go to get a cup to trap it under, returning to see that it’s vanished. He can’t imagine going out into the world without his sister, leaving her alone with mom and dad and her affinity that none of them can explain. What if somebody found out? They’ve all been extremely diligent about it before, but he can’t help the thought.

The first thing that he’d thought would happen would maybe involve the government. The idea makes him feel as though he’s been riding a roller coaster and the safety bars have come up in the middle of it, right before the giant hill.

The truth is that  _ none  _ of them know what’ll happen if their affinities aren’t secret anymore. None of them know where they’ll end up. Not him or Zoe, or Evan, or even Alana, who seems like she’s had hers under control for far longer than any of the rest of them. Whenever it comes up in a conversation when Jared is around, he gets nervous and fidgety. 

Here is safe. _ Now _ is safe. In the moment, with the power locked tightly beneath his skin and Zoe within a few paces, everything is okay.

But deep down, he knows it won’t be that way forever, and it’s scaring the shit out of him.

The ice cream place that Evan works at is a little brick building with  _ À La Mode!  _ in circular gold light bulbs over the door. Zoe and Connor go all the time; as long as there’s money to spend and ice cream to eat, she says, it’s worth it. He’d usually peg the place off as kitschy, but their coffee ice cream really is to die for—like, if he were told that he could only ever eat À La Mode ice cream one more time if he died immediately afterwards, he’d die happy, which, before, never seemed like a possibility.

“Hi Evan!” Zoe singsongs as the little bell attached to the door jingles warmly. The inside of the shop is blissfully cool and Connor has to direct all his focus on not melting to the pink and white tile floor.

Evan’s behind the counter, in the pastel colors of the shop uniform, his complexion rosy and his eyes bright. When he sees the two of them, his face breaks into the biggest grin and he waves back—then, Connor has to direct all his focus on not letting his  _ heart  _ melt.

Fuck. He hates this. It’s the stupidest thing that he’s ever felt, he thinks, and he’s felt of a lot of stupid things. His parents never specifically told him that  _ gay equals bad,  _ but maybe all of the talk of the small town kids at school and on the playground got to him, the regurgitations of their parent’s conversations on estranged relatives and hell-bound youths. He’s never told anyone, not even Zoe, who he’s told a lot of heavy shit. 

As far as he’s concerned, it shouldn’t even exist, and he keeps convincing himself that it  _ doesn’t _ until he sees Evan again, and it all comes undone.  _ He  _ comes undone. He hates that.

He follows Zoe up to the counter and tries not to feel his hands getting warmer. It’s summer. It’s hot. It’s not the affinity.

“And how are you doing on this fine summer day?” Zoe says, especially dramatic for the fact that she’s high on summer euphoria and maybe electricity.

“Oh, I’m good,” he says, leaning his arms on the counter. It looks like he’s the only one working, which is unusual, especially for a heat wave. “What about you guys?”

“We’re good! We were in town and thought we’d drop by.” She grins and messes with the shoulder of her t-shirt.

“Do you guys want your usual?” He asks, acknowledging Connor with a smile. 

“Yeah,” he says, and smiles back. His hands are burning. He takes them out of his pockets, imagining the possibility of setting his jeans on fire.  _ Why is it acting up right now, of all times?  _ He’s sweating. He’s not usually this nervous, and it’s freaking him out.

Evan takes Zoe’s money and leans over to scoop the ice cream into two cones, handing them to Zoe. When she goes to pass Connor’s to him, he gently grabs the top of the cone above her hand, his head pounding with the fear of burning her. The cone is kind of soft; there’s a faint sizzling sound that he prays nobody can hear.

By the time Zoe and him are sitting down at a table, there’s ice cream dripping down all over his hands and panic coursing its way through his blood.  _ It’s fine, it’s fine, stop thinking about it—that’s only making it worse— _

Zoe sees his situation and grimaces. “Oh, god. Are you okay?”

He presses his lips together. It’s making him angry and  _ that’s  _ making it even worse. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he half-whispers half-rasps. The only relief that he feels is the fact that no one else is in the store. The ice cream is almost completely liquid, and so he just makes his way to the trash can and slams it inside, his hands dripping with the sticky coffee-scented mess.

He stands there for a minute, not sure what to do.

_ Ice cream. What the actual  _ fuck  _ was I thinking? _

Then Evan comes up with napkins. He hands them to Connor, and then takes them back hurriedly as he yelps, the flimsy paper starting to turn into ash in his hands.  _ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why? Why now? _

“Do you… want me to do it?” Evan asks worriedly. He has this look on his face. He understands the affinity thing, Connor knows. That doesn’t make it any less humiliating.

“Fine,” he hisses, and looks away as, very carefully, Evan wipes up the melted ice cream with little dabs, trying to preserve the napkin for as long as possible as it singes away. Zoe comes up on the other side of him, a perplexed expression on her face, and he looks down at his shoes. Evan’s hands brush Connor’s every so often. It’s a wonder that he’s not burning him. “Can you just—I’ll wash my hands,” he seethes.

Evan pushes the napkins through the slot on the trashcan and looks at him. “Yeah, of course. Do you need me to—,”

“Will you—,”

They both stop talking, and, in mutual understanding, walk to the other side of the store, where Evan opens the door to the bathroom for him and turns on the sink, letting Connor run his hands through the freezing water and try to ignore the steam that’s rising and coating the mirror in condensation.

_ This  _ is why he doesn’t like leaving the house.  _ Exactly this reason. _

When the steam stops and his hands are clean, he wipes them on his jeans and avoids eye contact with Evan as he storms back to him and Zoe’s seat. She’s sitting there, licking her rainbow sherbet. The perplexed expression hasn’t moved an inch.

Well. What can he say? Shit like this explains every static, immovable mindset about isolation that’s ever found its way into his head. He tries, sometimes, really does. And then he’s thwarted by his own human-ness. 

_ Yeah, Connor. Absolutely not. You’re not some perfect being who does no wrong, who has no shame. _

He wants to disappear, in this moment. Zoe’s staring at him, and he barks, “What?”

“Nothing.” She shrugs and looks out the window. “Sorry. I just wanted to have a nice time.”

He doesn’t even say anything to this, just scowls. A moment passes. Then Evan comes up to the table, and he has a little plastic cup full of coffee ice cream and a metal spoon, and a smile on his face. He sets it down before Connor, who’s shocked to unblinking. 

“On me,” he whispers, and then, before smiling again, heads into the back room.

Huh. 

Zoe looks at him. He looks at Zoe. And then, he takes a bite of coffee ice cream and tries not to think of anything because,  _ wow, if he died right now, he’d die happy.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all of the positive reactions! I am honestly l i v i n g for this au right now it is so fun to write and it is re-vamping my creative juices! Please consider leaving a kudos, or, if you're feeling especially awesome, a comment. Those make my day! And check out the series of works for more related oneshots <3


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